The Coaching Habit
by Michael Bungay Stanier
Why You Should Read This: In order to be a great negotiator, you need to tap into your curiosity to see the challenges and opportunities through the lens of the other party. One of the best ways to do that and spark conversations is through the wisdom of Michael Bungay Stanier’s: The Coaching Habit Say Less, Ask More, & Change the Way You Lead Forever. You might know Michael Bungay Stanier from Brené Brown’s podcast, but I recently had the opportunity to take an intensive leadership course from him through Section4 that stopped me in my tracks and opened my mind to the power of listening and asking the RIGHT questions to get at the heart of what you need – BEYOND simply coaching. Here is the link to the Audible version of the book but I also recommend buying a physical book that you can dog-ear and highlight.
Put the “coaching” in the title aside and use the lessons in it broadly, particularly to negotiations and finding out what people want and need. What the author builds into this book is how you can empower yourself by tapping into the power of curiosity. He further states that He uses a coaching technique of focusing on the reactions created by asking seven questions that will create profound impact. These questions on the surface seem simple but are anything but that – they all require focus and a dedication to developing the hard skills that many refer to as “soft”:
• The Kickstart Question
• The AWE Question
• The Focus Question
• The Foundation Question
• The Lazy Question
• The Strategic Question
• The Learning Question
I will not spoil what these questions are, but a few are worth applying to each interaction you have each day, thereby making these “essential.”
How You Can Apply This: Dial up your listening skills and ask as many questions as you need to reach the core of issues for the issues you and your teams face. The brilliance of the seven essential questions is that you can explore and apply them to every aspect of your life. The author’s comment that the first answer someone gives you is almost never the only answer, and it’s rarely the best answer.” Each chapter is built around what these questions are and how to apply them; but create your own work portfolio (see the Career Growth Committee’s Q2 2022 live event for more details.) And trust me, I use them often and I can see how it allows me to bridge the gap between managing and leading, the latter of which allows me to empower the teams that I lead to make more thoughtful and collaborative decisions.
Additional Materials For Reinforcing What You Learned: If you want to reinforce what you learned, you might enjoy listening to the Negotiate Anything podcast where the host, Kwame Christian, is interviewed by Dan Webb Howard, Professor of Negotiations and Business Law at the University of Oregon Lundquist School of Business (full disclosure, I am a Duck.) The conversation discusses the importance of understanding your emotions and those of the other parties within the negotiations in order to create the trust needed to mediate and negotiate. One of the best quotes from the conversation is centered on the need to build and maintain trust: “Trust is earned in drips, but lost in buckets.”
This book review was written by Shelley A. Svoren, VP – Leader Development for IAWA and who is the CEO + Founder of Infinite Branches. You can DM her on LinkedIn.